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Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 11:36:13 -0500
To: info@natural-law.ca
From: Richard Wolfson <rwolfson@concentric.net>
Subject: GE News
The first 3 article are from: allsorts <allsorts@gn.apc.org>
GE - GMO News 07/16
Herald Express (Torquay) July 16, 1998
Environment: Protests, Genetic food ban "FRANKENSTEIN" food could soon be
off the menu at Torquay Town Hall and other council-run premises. Torbay
Council is to ask its food suppliers, whenever possible, to steer clear of
genetically -modified products. The move was requested by St Marychurch
councillor and environmental campaigner Andy Blake and adopted by the
policy committee yesterday.
................
The Scotsman July 16, 1998
CALL FOR INDEPENDENT GM CROP MONITORS
Vic Robertson
GOVERNMENT officials are being urged to tighten up on monitoring
arrangements for genetically modified crops once they are released for
commercial marketing.
It was wholly inappropriate that the companies responsible for bringing GM
crops to the market should be left in charge of monitoring them for
environmental and health effects, the former agriculture minister, Lord
Jopling, said yesterday. At a meeting of the agriculture subcommittee of
the Lords' European ommunities Committee, he told officials of the
Department of the Environment that this was like leaving the tobacco
industry in charge of monitoring the effect of tobacco on human health,
which was "one of the greatest disgraces of the modern age".
Lord Jopling said: "Surely there should be independent monitoring of these
crops, but financed by these companies. Given the tobacco example, why do
you think these companies are competent?"
Dr Linda Smith, the head of biotechnology at the DETR, said that unlike
the tobacco industry, monitoring of GM crops was a statutory obligation and
the Government would have to be satisfied these companies were carrying it
out properly. However, she agreed to take the suggestion back to the DETR
for consideration.
Lord Jopling said there was growing concern that GM crops could become
susceptible to fungal diseases over time. He cited a recent report by
Professor Mark Williamson, of York University, into a GM maize variety in
the US that accounted for 85 per cent of that crop's acreage becoming
susceptible to fungal pathogens two decades after its introduction there.
This confirmed the need for independent monitoring of the crops long after
their market introduction, he said. The interactions between crop and
environment could not be predicted over the long term.
.................
The Irish Times July 16, 1998
Judgment reserved in challenge to EPA's consent to beet trials
By MARY CAROLAN
The High Court has reserved judgment on a case expected to have major
implications for the biotechnology industry. Submissions concluded
yesterday after 10 days of the hearing of a challenge taken by Ms Claire
Watson, of Genetic Concern, to the decision of the Environmental
Protection Agency on May 1st, 1997 to permit Monsanto conduct field trials
of genetically -engineered sugar beet in Co Carlow.
Monsanto has become involved with another company, Novartis, in the
development of a glyphosate-tolerant sugar beet plant. The trials, on
Teagasc-owned lands at Oak Park, Co Carlow, aim to test the effect of
Monsanto's weedkiller, Round Up, in which the active ingredient is
glyphosate, on that sugar beet.
At the conclusion of yesterday's hearing, Mr Justice O'Sullivan
reserved judgment in what he said was a "very important" case. The case has
heard complex scientific evidence and the judge had asked both sides if
they could agree a simplified guide to genetic engineering which he could
refer to. He was told yesterday that this had not been possible.
........................
Thanks to MichaelP <papadop@peak.org> for posting the following two NY
Times items on genetic manipulation
===============================================
NY Times July 20, 1998
Bucking U.S. Trend, Europe Blocks Gene-Altered Food
______________________________________________________________
By MICHAEL SPECTER
D ALLIKON, Switzerland Like his father and grandfather before him, Kaspar
Gunthardt is a man of the soil. He lives in the solid old farmhouse where
he was born and he has worked the rich earth around it for most of his 52
years.
He is a traditionalist who has nevertheless embraced the future. Gunthardt
owns a sophisticated cooling system for storing dairy products. He recycles
waste to fuel his farm, and cameras strapped to beams in his barn are
connected to the Internet, putting the personal habits of his cattle on
worldwide display (http://naturaplan.coop.ch).
But when it comes to playing with the rules of nature Gunthardt draws a
line that he says he will never cross.
"There is some sickness spreading across Europe right now," he said,
striding quickly through a 20-acre patch of organic potatoes on his farm
just south of Zurich. "A bunch of people are trying to get rich by telling
us that nature isn't good enough and that we will have to take genes out of
a fish and put them in a strawberry if we want to survive. They are
changing the basic rules of life and they want to try it all out on us."
"Maybe they will get their way," he said, referring to the failure of a
recent national referendum here on curtailing genetic engineering. "It
happened in America. But it won't happen on this farm. Here we are going to
live like God intended."
If Gunthardt seems inflexible on the issue he certainly has company. From
one end of Europe to the other consumers are in open revolt over the
prospect of a future in which nature has somehow been altered by people
holding test tubes.
Throughout the world last year more than 30 million acres of commercial
farmland were planted with genetically modified seeds -- 10 times as much
as the year before. But not one of those acres was in the 15 countries of
the European Union.
Prince Charles recently voiced a common sentiment when he announced that no
genetically altered food would ever pass his lips. "That takes mankind into
realms that belong to God, and to God alone," he said.
The debate here about how and whether to unleash the most powerful tools of
modern biology says much about the cultural and philosophical differences
between pragmatic and risk-ready America, where genetic technology that
focuses on food has largely been accepted, and the far more reticent people
of Europe.
But it says more than that, because what happens to crops from Bialystok to
Bruges will have major consequences not just for farmers, but also for
industrial policy and for fields like medicine, agriculture and
pharmaceutical research.
Europeans do make distinctions. They see genetic engineering in the pursuit
of better medicine as worth a few moral doubts, and like many Americans
they are profoundly unsettled about the prospect of such research involving
humans.
Fears of Drastic Change and Memories of Abuse
Yet often the differences between research in plants and animals are
completely blurred by sensational events. The cloning of an adult lamb in
Scotland two years ago only deepened fears people already had.
There are many ways to explain the European conservatism, a strong
environmental movement rooted in the 19th-century philosophy that nature is
as wise as man, a fear of drastic change and the unusually large number of
small farms still run by families who are reluctant to end practices that
have been honed over centuries.
Recent history also plays a role, for in this part of the world the uses of
genetics have not always been benign. In almost any discussion the dark but
recent past also comes up.
"The shadow of the Holocaust is dense and incredibly powerful still,"
Arthur Caplan, the ethicist who is at the University of Pennsylvania, said.
"It leaves Europe terrified about the abuse of genetics. To them the
potential to abuse genetics is no theory. It is a historical fact."
Despite the victory for researchers in Switzerland, the battle for Europe
continues to rage. Norway no longer accepts U.S. soybean imports because
more than one-third are genetically modified to ward off pests. Austria and
Luxembourg have totally banned genetically modified food.
In France where food is never just food the issue was recently put before
the nation by a "citizens conference" that produced an ambiguous statement
of "cautious" support for such crops. In Britain vandalism has become so
common at sites where genetically modified crops are tested that the
government is now considering concealing their locations.
An Old Challenge Met in New Ways
"These people who say they are defending nature simply harm the countries
they pretend to protect," said Daniel Vasella, president and chief
executive officer of Novartis AG, the pharmaceutical giant that has
energetically begun to move into food production. "We have enough food in
Europe. So that's not really an issue. That lets them fight to keep
everything forever the way it is now. They move ahead by looking backward.
It is so very egotistical."
All farmers try to grow crops that resist disease and last long enough to
arrive safely at the market. The task is obvious but not simple. Officials
at the United Nations World Food Program estimate that up to 40 percent of
the world's crops are destroyed as they grow or before they leave the
field. Attempts to find a way to protect them have therefore been intense.
Scientists can now tell with precision which of 50,000 genes in a plant
governs a particular trait. If it is beneficial, they can take that gene
out of one species something that wards off a common insect, for instance
copy it and stick it into another organism, to protect it. That organism,
and its offspring, will then have a genetic structure that lets them resist
such pests.
In a way that is nothing new. For centuries farmers have been trying to
breed crops to make sure that the biggest and best survive.
It has been more than 500 years since people realized that rennet from
calves' stomachs turned milk into cheese. At the time nobody knew why
exactly. An enzyme called chymosin does the job.
Nevertheless it was a use of biotechnology that prevails today in modern
form, an enzyme made through genetic engineering that has replaced the
rennet from calves' stomachs.
"What is this 'mad' science?" asked Joseph Zak, who is paid by the American
Soybean Association to try to calm European fears about how soy products
are grown. "It is just another step in the history of agricultural
technology. It falls in the same line as when tractors replaced the horse.
It's like when fertilizers came into the picture and when we moved to
breeding to make a better product."
But consumers often see it as tampering with their food. And in Europe,
where regulatory bodies are not nearly as powerful or as respected as the
Food and Drug Administration is in the United States, the fact of
manipulation drives people crazy. In addition, Mad Cow Disease, which
exposed fundamental flaws in food-safety regulation, reminded people that
science is never infallible.
"I am sure all this food is safe and that there might be some promise to
it," Lianne Wilier, 31, an accountant in Zurich, said. "If it helps poor
people somehow, I'm all for it. But I would never feed something to my
children that is not natural. It feels wrong to me I guess because if we
make a mistake on this level there is no going back. Saying we were wrong
isn't going to be good enough."
What the Vanille Gene Might Do to Madagascar
Despite enormous experience that shows the crops are safe to grow and eat,
fundamental questions do exist about the possible uses of such technology.
It is now simple, for example, to put the taste of vanilla in almost any
food by inserting the right gene into that food. It seems harmless, and
physically it is.
"We looked into this carefully," said Maria Zimmerman, who is in charge of
agricultural research for the sustainable development department of the
United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. "If we start making fake
vanilla we will destroy the lives of thousands of farmers in Madagascar,"
the African island-nation that is home to most of the world's vanilla crop.
"We would ruin the island's economy. So we aren't moving forward with that."
Others would argue that farmers in Madagascar need to find new crops to
grow, and that could force them to do it. But it is a difficult issue for
Ms. Zimmerman, because her job is to push genetically modified research
toward its greatest goal, more and more effective food at lower cost for
millions of people.
"It takes one hectare," or two and a half acres, "of land to feed four
people," she said. "But as a result of population growth, drought and the
rise of a middle class that eats better food and more food in many
countries, that same amount of land is going to have to feed six people in
about 20 years. That means we need 50 percent more food. And this
technology can help. It must help."
Science's Promise of Abundance
She and other researchers say biotechnology can provide more nutritious
rice, as well as cotton that requires less water to grow and fewer
pesticides. She wants to find genes that will preserve crops, enrich their
protein content and make them easier to grow. All that, theoretically at
least, is possible.
There are dozens of varieties of genetically modified seeds corn, soybean,
potatoes and cotton are examples that have been planted in the United
States. Many more are on the way.
Soybeans that have been modified to tolerate an herbicide have
revolutionized one of the world's most important crops. And, yes, it is now
possible to take a gene from certain fish, which permits it to tolerate the
extreme cold of the deep ocean, and insert it into a strawberry.
"Who wouldn't feel a little strange about all of this?" asked Monsignor
Elio Sgreccia, president of the Vatican Bioethics Institute, which follows
closely debates about genetic technology. "It is a troubling aspect of a
world that seems to be moving too fast, one in which people often make
terrible mistakes in the name of progress."
"Europeans are particularly aware of that problem," Sgreccia said. "Still,
there are genes and there are genes. From the Catholic point of view we are
open to the use of genetic technology in agriculture and with animals, as
long as we don't do it with man. We believe that man has a primacy on this
planet and that as long as he uses it wisely nature is here for him."
At first glance Florianne Koechlin might seem an unlikely advocate in the
struggle to ban the use of genetically modified organisms. She lives near
Basel, the home of the Swiss pharmaceutical industry, and she is a member
of the Geigy family, which started the company that has become part of
Novartis.
Shorter Research Cycles and Swift Actions
Ms. Koechlin said she was convinced that humans were racing to put
themselves in a position that they will ultimately regret.
"I am not saying genetic research should disappear," she said, sitting in
the bright kitchen of her unassuming suburban house. "This pervades all
areas of life on earth, food, seed, the cells of human beings. I know that.
But why can't we slow down and think about it all?"
That may no longer be possible, not even in Europe. Research and
development cycles shorten every year. International competition demands
swift action to remain competitive.
"We have eaten the apple and now we will have to live with the knowledge it
gives us," said Gian Reto Plattner, a professor of physics at the
University of Basel. He is also a Socialist member of the Swiss Parliament
who broke with his own party to oppose the ban.
But he did not do that lightly.
"If you look at this as a question of risks it's pretty clear that these
crops are safe," Plattner said. "Explosions and fire are far more
dangerous, and we use them every day. But nobody is looking at the use of
genetics that way. This is a religious discussion we are having. Many
people feel nature is immutable. This work tells them they are wrong, and
then they are being told to forget about their basic beliefs. It's really
asking a lot."
=============================
NY Times July 20, 1998
Shoppers Unaware of Genetically Altered Food
American shoppers would be surprised to know that much of the food they buy
has genetically engineered ingredients. But they cannot tell just how much,
because the United States, unlike many other countries, does not require
the labeling of gene-modified food. Most consumers are unaware of the
amount of genetically engineered food that is available, making it
difficult to judge their resistance to such products.
When the government granted Monsanto Co. permission to sell rBGH,
recombinant bovine growth hormone, which increases cows' milk production,
and milk containing a gene-altered hormone went on sale, some states and
several dairies tried to label their products as free of the hormone.
Monsanto threatened to take them to court. Some capitulated. But a number
of dairy products are now labeled to show that they do not contain rBGH.
With only a few consumer groups seeking wider labeling, the greatest
awareness of genetically engineered food comes from the organic-food
industry.
Whole Foods Market Inc. of Austin, Texas, which has 91 supermarkets in 18
states, requires its suppliers to guarantee that none of the products they
sell to the company have gene-altered ingredients. Last year, when the
Agriculture Department proposed national standards for organic food that
included genetically altered food, more than 200,000 comments were received
protesting the proposed regulations. The inclusion of genetically modified
food was one of the reasons most often cited, and the proposal was
withdrawn.
On Jan. 1 the government gave the green light to genetically modified
soybeans, cotton, corn, summer squash, potatoes, canola oil, radicchio,
papayas and tomatoes. The amount of genetically modified soybeans, cotton
and corn on the market is significant. According to one study, the
gene-altered corn crop in the United States this summer is estimated to be
32 percent of the total, for soybeans 38 percent and for canola oil, from
Canada, 58 percent. There is no estimate for cotton.
There are no figures for the smaller crops like papaya and radicchio, and
just because a crop has approval does not mean that it is being sold. But
within a year or two such crops are quite likely to be available. The
Consumers Union, the Environmental Defense Fund and the Center for Science
in the Public Interest are among those pushing for labeling. Norway and
India are leading the fight to require the strictest labeling on all foods.
And virtually all European Union countries want some labeling for
gene-altered food. A senior scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund,
Rebecca Goldberg, said the United States might be forced to require some
labeling because of international trade.
"Many products made abroad," Ms. Goldberg said, "will be labeled, and in
order for the United States to sell food products abroad we may have to
label them." get rich by telling us that nature isn't good enough and that
we will have to take genes out of a fish and put them in a strawberry if we
want to survive. They are changing the basic rules of life and they want to
try it all out on us."
"Maybe they will get their way," he said, referring to the failure of a
recent national referendum here on curtailing genetic engineering. "It
happened in America. But it won't happen on this farm. Here we are going to
live like God intended."
If Gunthardt seems inflexible on the issue he certainly has company. From
one end of Europe to the other consumers are in open revolt over the
prospect of a future in which nature has somehow been altered by people
holding test tubes.
Throughout the world last year more than 30 million acres of commercial
farmland were planted with genetically modified seeds -- 10 times as much
as the year before. But not one of those acres was in the 15 countries of
the European Union.
Prince Charles recently voiced a common sentiment when he announced that no
genetically altered food would ever pass his lips. "That takes mankind into
realms that belong to God, and to God alone," he said.
The debate here about how and whether to unleash the most powerful tools of
modern biology says much about the cultural and philosophical differences
between pragmatic and risk-ready America, where genetic technology that
focuses on food has largely been accepted, and the far more reticent people
of Europe.
But it says more than that, because what happens to crops from Bialystok to
Bruges will have major consequences not just for farmers, but also for
industrial policy and for fields like medicine, agriculture and
pharmaceutical research.
Europeans do make distinctions. They see genetic engineering in the pursuit
of better medicine as worth a few moral doubts, and like many Americans
they are profoundly unsettled about the prospect of such research involving
humans.
Fears of Drastic Change and Memories of Abuse
Yet often the differences between research in plants and animals are
completely blurred by sensational events. The cloning of an adult lamb in
Scotland two years ago only deepened fears people already had.
There are many ways to explain the European conservatism, a strong
environmental movement rooted in the 19th-century philosophy that nature is
as wise as man, a fear of drastic change and the unusually large number of
small farms still run by families who are reluctant to end practices that
have been honed over centuries.
Recent history also plays a role, for in this part of the world the uses of
genetics have not always been benign. In almost any discussion the dark but
recent past also comes up.
"The shadow of the Holocaust is dense and incredibly powerful still,"
Arthur Caplan, the ethicist who is at the University of Pennsylvania, said.
"It leaves Europe terrified about the abuse of genetics. To them the
potential to abuse genetics is no theory. It is a historical fact."
Despite the victory for researchers in Switzerland, the battle for Europe
continues to rage. Norway no longer accepts U.S. soybean imports because
more than one-third are genetically modified to ward off pests. Austria and
Luxembourg have totally banned genetically modified food.
In France where food is never just food the issue was recently put before
the nation by a "citizens conference" that produced an ambiguous statement
of "cautious" support for such crops. In Britain vandalism has become so
common at sites where genetically modified crops are tested that the
government is now considering concealing their locations.
An Old Challenge Met in New Ways
"These people who say they are defending nature simply harm the countries
they pretend to protect," said Daniel Vasella, president and chief
executive officer of Novartis AG, the pharmaceutical giant that has
energetically begun to move into food production. "We have enough food in
Europe. So that's not really an issue. That lets them fight to keep
everything forever the way it is now. They move ahead by looking backward.
It is so very egotistical."
All farmers try to grow crops that resist disease and last long enough to
arrive safely at the market. The task is obvious but not simple. Officials
at the United Nations World Food Program estimate that up to 40 percent of
the world's crops are destroyed as they grow or before they leave the
field. Attempts to find a way to protect them have therefore been intense.
Scientists can now tell with precision which of 50,000 genes in a plant
governs a particular trait. If it is beneficial, they can take that gene
out of one species something that wards off a common insect, for instance
copy it and stick it into another organism, to protect it. That organism,
and its offspring, will then have a genetic structure that lets them resist
such pests.
In a way that is nothing new. For centuries farmers have been trying to
breed crops to make sure that the biggest and best survive.
It has been more than 500 years since people realized that rennet from
calves' stomachs turned milk into cheese. At the time nobody knew why
exactly. An enzyme called chymosin does the job.
Nevertheless it was a use of biotechnology that prevails today in modern
form, an enzyme made through genetic engineering that has replaced the
rennet from calves' stomachs.
"What is this 'mad' science?" asked Joseph Zak, who is paid by the American
Soybean Association to try to calm European fears about how soy products
are grown. "It is just another step in the history of agricultural
technology. It falls in the same line as when tractors replaced the horse.
It's like when fertilizers came into the picture and when we moved to
breeding to make a better product."
But consumers often see it as tampering with their food. And in Europe,
where regulatory bodies are not nearly as powerful or as respected as the
Food and Drug Administration is in the United States, the fact of
manipulation drives people crazy. In addition, Mad Cow Disease, which
exposed fundamental flaws in food-safety regulation, reminded people that
science is never infallible.
"I am sure all this food is safe and that there might be some promise to
it," Lianne Wilier, 31, an accountant in Zurich, said. "If it helps poor
people somehow, I'm all for it. But I would never feed something to my
children that is not natural. It feels wrong to me I guess because if we
make a mistake on this level there is no going back. Saying we were wrong
isn't going to be good enough."
What the Vanille Gene Might Do to Madagascar
Despite enormous experience that shows the crops are safe to grow and eat,
fundamental questions do exist about the possible uses of such technology.
It is now simple, for example, to put the taste of vanilla in almost any
food by inserting the right gene into that food. It seems harmless, and
physically it is.
"We looked into this carefully," said Maria Zimmerman, who is in charge of
agricultural research for the sustainable development department of the
United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. "If we start making fake
vanilla we will destroy the lives of thousands of farmers in Madagascar,"
the African island-nation that is home to most of the world's vanilla crop.
"We would ruin the island's economy. So we aren't moving forward with that."
Others would argue that farmers in Madagascar need to find new crops to
grow, and that could force them to do it. But it is a difficult issue for
Ms. Zimmerman, because her job is to push genetically modified research
toward its greatest goal, more and more effective food at lower cost for
millions of people.
"It takes one hectare," or two and a half acres, "of land to feed four
people," she said. "But as a result of population growth, drought and the
rise of a middle class that eats better food and more food in many
countries, that same amount of land is going to have to feed six people in
about 20 years. That means we need 50 percent more food. And this
technology can help. It must help."
Science's Promise of Abundance
She and other researchers say biotechnology can provide more nutritious
rice, as well as cotton that requires less water to grow and fewer
pesticides. She wants to find genes that will preserve crops, enrich their
protein content and make them easier to grow. All that, theoretically at
least, is possible.
There are dozens of varieties of genetically modified seeds corn, soybean,
potatoes and cotton are examples that have been planted in the United
States. Many more are on the way.
Soybeans that have been modified to tolerate an herbicide have
revolutionized one of the world's most important crops. And, yes, it is now
possible to take a gene from certain fish, which permits it to tolerate the
extreme cold of the deep ocean, and insert it into a strawberry.
"Who wouldn't feel a little strange about all of this?" asked Monsignor
Elio Sgreccia, president of the Vatican Bioethics Institute, which follows
closely debates about genetic technology. "It is a troubling aspect of a
world that seems to be moving too fast, one in which people often make
terrible mistakes in the name of progress."
"Europeans are particularly aware of that problem," Sgreccia said. "Still,
there are genes and there are genes. From the Catholic point of view we are
open to the use of genetic technology in agriculture and with animals, as
long as we don't do it with man. We believe that man has a primacy on this
planet and that as long as he uses it wisely nature is here for him."
At first glance Florianne Koechlin might seem an unlikely advocate in the
struggle to ban the use of genetically modified organisms. She lives near
Basel, the home of the Swiss pharmaceutical industry, and she is a member
of the Geigy family, which started the company that has become part of
Novartis.
Shorter Research Cycles and Swift Actions
Ms. Koechlin said she was convinced that humans were racing to put
themselves in a position that they will ultimately regret.
"I am not saying genetic research should disappear," she said, sitting in
the bright kitchen of her unassuming suburban house. "This pervades all
areas of life on earth, food, seed, the cells of human beings. I know that.
But why can't we slow down and think about it all?"
That may no longer be possible, not even in Europe. Research and
development cycles shorten every year. International competition demands
swift action to remain competitive.
"We have eaten the apple and now we will have to live with the knowledge it
gives us," said Gian Reto Plattner, a professor of physics at the
University of Basel. He is also a Socialist member of the Swiss Parliament
who broke with his own party to oppose the ban.
But he did not do that lightly.
"If you look at this as a question of risks it's pretty clear that these
crops are safe," Plattner said. "Explosions and fire are far more
dangerous, and we use them every day. But nobody is looking at the use of
genetics that way. This is a religious discussion we are having. Many
people feel nature is immutable. This work tells them they are wrong, and
then they are being told to forget about their basic beliefs. It's really
asking a lot."
_________________________________________________________
Richard Wolfson, PhD
Consumer Right to Know Campaign,
for Mandatory Labelling and Long-term
Testing of all Genetically Engineered Foods,
500 Wilbrod Street
Ottawa, ON Canada K1N 6N2
tel. 613-565-8517 fax. 613-565-1596
email: rwolfson@concentric.net
Our website, http://www.natural-law.ca/genetic/geindex.html
contains more information on genetic engineering as well as
previous genetic engineering news items
Subscription fee to genetic engineering news is $35 for 12 months
See website for details.
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
--Dan in Sunny Puerto Rico--
dan.worley@mindless.com
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